'Revolution' showrunner Eric Kripke has answers about the blackout

Revolution is a J.J. Abrams-produced show, which typically means all talent involved stay tight-lipped about what happens next, but creator Eric Kripke has actually been rather open about the fate of Charlie, Danny, Miles, et al. During a conference call with journalists on Thursday, Kripke was rather forthcoming about what we can expect to happen next on the new post-apocalyptic show.

Warning to those of you still catching up on your DVR: SPOILERS AHEAD about Revolution’s first four episodes – plus, of course, some teases about episodes yet to air.

No answers yet about why the blackout happened, but he did give us a sense of when we can expect to find out why the world suddenly lost all electrical power. Fresh off the news of a full season pickup, Kripke talked about why he decided to kill off Maggie, when we will see Miles and Monroe come face-to-face and his approach to secret-keeping and -revealing.

The cause of the blackout may be revealed before the end of season 1.

Kripke said that the show’s writers are still discussing how early to reveal why the lights went out, but there’s a distinct possibility we’ll know before the first season ends. The creator’s philosophy on revealing answers and wrapping up storylines before moving onto a bigger one is not unlike his approach to his other show, Supernatural. “For me the longer you drag out an answer, the more pressure there is that that answer is the greatest answer ever given in the history of man,” he said. “I would prefer we answer questions quickly and then ask more questions. Answer a question and then open a door to a whole other bigger room.” As for what will be in that bigger room, Kripke promised that the truth about the cause of the blackout “leads directly to a bigger and scarier mystery.”

But until fans learn the cause of the blackout, Kripke says, “You should look for clues everywhere,” including that shot of planet Earth in the pilot. That gradual sweep of darkness across the world, starting at a specific point was intentional. “What you saw in that globe shot is an accurate representation” of how the lights went out, Kripke said.

Killing off Maggie makes the stakes very real

Revolution‘s latest episode featured the death of a character who fans previously expected to be a long-running regular. Kripke explained his thinking behind the decision to kill her off so early: “I sort of have a bad habit in the shows I run of killing off the people that I love. And I think Maggie was one of those. We decided internally very early on that it was really important to show that this world had very real stakes and that it was truly dangerous because you’re not close to hospitals, you’re not close to paramedics, you’re not close to help. We very quickly realized that the scariest thing we could do was to kill the doctor among them.”

David Livingston/Getty Images

The search for Danny will end in episode 10.

Charlie’s quest to save her brother is a “prologue to a much bigger story,” Kripke said. “We never had any intention of keeping the search for Danny going forever… By episode 10, we will have played that prologue out, and it’s time to begin the next chapter of the show and explore much more why, in fact, the show is titled Revolution.”

Episode 10 will also feature a confrontation between Miles and Monroe.

For now, the show has only featured Miles and the man who would become General Monroe in flashbacks. But an encounter between the two will occur in the same episode that the search for Danny ends. “They confront each other for the first time in years, and we think it’ll be pretty explosive and emotional,” said Kripke, who also described the two men’s relationship as “tragic in a Cain and Abel kind of way.”

Grace and Randall will be prominent characters in the second half of the season.

Grace has indeed been kidnapped by the mysterious Randall character we saw a glimpse of in episode 2. Grace and Randall will next appear in episode 7, and then in the second half of the season they “begin to play a huge, huge part in the main storyline of the show,” Kripke teased.

In next week’s episode: a family reunion

In episode 5, titled “Soul Train” and scheduled to air on Monday, Oct. 15, Danny will arrive in Philadelphia, where Monroe is keeping Rachel imprisoned. “Now General Monroe has Rachel where he wants her because he doesn’t care about her own well-being, but of course she cares about the well-being of her son,” Kripke said. Expect at least a few answers about the blackout in that episode: The plan to torture Danny to get his mother to talk works, and Monroe, along with the audience, will learn a bit of what Rachel knows about why the lights went out.